Thread Watch

[Null]

This is a thread for commenting and criticizing other threads on the forum.

This is inspired by @cat's "Thread Commentaries" thread in the Supporter's board, which is a running commentary on any other thread on the forum. We've recently had a thread on the Andrew Dobson thread, one of my personal favorites, partially because Dobson (as an artist) draws the ire of many artists who will do their own renditions of his art in their own style, showcasing what elements are missing in his originals. This is really entertaining, even to a non-artist like me, because it shows why I don't like something or don't think it's visually appealing. There is a lack of this recently, mostly because people seem to take hating on the retarded blue bear too seriously.

I'd like more of that kind of introspection, and I give this as a place to be introspective and critical of other parts of the community. Our threads are very diverse and cover a lot of topics, so what constitutes a quality discussion varies a lot.

I ask you keep two things in mind with this thread.

• Don't trash other people. If a specific person is causing problems repeatedly, make a Talk to Staff thread.
• Use the report button if a single post or series of posts are off-topic or otherwise shit. We have 2,000 posts a day here and a handful of people with stuff to do. Not every thread gets read, but every report does.

 

[wagglyplacebo]

The thread that people see me criticize the most is probably the brad Watson thread. It's just filled with people yelling at him that he's not jesus. Look, we know he's not jesus, you know you're not gonna convince him he's not jesus, so really people just wanna feel validated that they are smarter than an old man that pretends he's Einstein. Getting a giant red F from brad was funny like in the first couple pages but by now it's just tiring.

 

[CatParty]

I disagree with this thread because I had created it in supporters as a fun thing for paying members. Something nice to discuss that wasn't out in the public as a perk for us who support the forums. However if you feel this is a discussion that can be out in the open especially in the lolcow section where people do not even need to register to read, then that's cool too. I'll just find more fun forum stuff for our paying community.

 

[Null]

I disagree with this thread because I had created it in supporters as a fun thing for paying members. Something nice to discuss that wasn't out in the public as a perk for us who support the forums. However if you feel this is a discussion that can be out in the open especially in the lolcow section where people do not even need to register to read, then that's cool too. I'll just find more fun forum stuff for our paying community.

So what you're saying is that you criticize this thread in the thread about criticizing threads?

 

[CatParty]

So what you're saying is that you criticize this thread in the thread about criticizing threads?

Only in the sense that I want to keep supporters special in that the more exclusive content you have there, the more people are inclined to donate to the forums.

 

[Null]

Only in the sense that I want to keep supporters special in that the more exclusive content you have there, the more people are inclined to donate to the forums.

You can still use that thread. Just shit on people to make it extra special.

 

[Clown Doll]

I've always hated the "You can't A-Log this lolcow, they're that bad!"-argument. Cutting down on posts that are unreasonably angry towards lolcows isn't because the Lolcow is somehow deserving of sympathy, it's more to preserve the thread in a form that isn't full of cringey Internet Tough Guy posts that clutter up the threads and in case the lolcow is trolling (think MRZ / Marjan / Other Sluthate/LS users), posts that are really angry-emotional are feeding them. Usually with threads like Marjan's, where the cow gets people angry, people wisen up to their tricks and begin to take the piss out the cow, making them mad, instead of us being mad at them. But that may take a while and in the meanwhile the threads balloon up with tens of pages of nothing but insults which makes threads unreadable and makes posts with actual content get lost a lot of time.

The lolcows we discuss for the most part may be bad people, but they usually aren't supposed to get a normal, well-adjusted person mad. The line blurs a lot with Pedophile lolcows like James Terry Mitchell, who get understandably enough even normal people upset by existing, let alone when they're recanting the time they raped someone and present themselves as a victim. It's reasonable to get upset to the point that you feel sick in your stomach, but if a cow gets you really upset, it may be worth assessing whether you want to post in a thread that makes you uncontrollably angry, or if you really want to tell them how much you want to rape them with a rusty rake, you might want to consider PM'ing them instead. That doesn't mean that people shouldn't mock them or let them know that they're a bad person in no uncertain terms, just control the output so you don't appear hysterically angry.

 

[Super Collie]

The Leonard Shaner thread was my all-time favorite thread here on the farms, and I am still salty that it was trashed by autist tryhards trying to ween and get Len to notice them. With most cows there are a couple of people close to the perp who are able to pull the strings or share anecdotes; chances are you are not one of these people, and I wish those fucks would learn to just enjoy the thread and let the people in charge do their business. People like Kirby running their credit cards on Fiverr to pay a bunch of e-prostitutes to taunt Len or Kiwis claiming to know Len and trying to outdo Gook Choy's stories killed the mood of the thread, and look where it is now.

Sometimes, as wagglyplacebo mentioned with the Brad Watson thread, I feel like having the cows come here is just a bad idea (see also: Strikerwolf). We have too many retards here who don't know how to act or play along with someone who thinks they're Jesus or a KKK Grand Dragon or whatever Striker is.

 

[AnOminous]

I've always hated the "You can't A-Log this lolcow, they're that bad!"

As you point out later, this rule does have validity in one situation we see, and that's actual pedophiles.

Pretty much anyone else can be A-logged, I think. A-logging is being unreasonably mad about a cow, and it isn't actually unreasonable to wish grave harm on people like Nick Bate. It's still subject to being repetitive and boring.

If you'd set a simple rule, it would be this. Do they have victims such that they could be thrown in prison for heinous crimes? No? Then they can be A-logged.

Examples of people who have minor bullshit crimes who can still be A-logged: Phil (both Phils), Chris, Dobson, pretty much everyone.

 

[wagglyplacebo]

I personally think that anyone posting about how angry they are at Lolcows is ridiculous. It does nothing but give the Lolcow the kind of attention they crave and make the thread annoying to read.

 

[Vitriol]

I've always hated the "You can't A-Log this lolcow, they're that bad!"

As you point out later, this rule does have validity in one situation we see, and that's actual pedophiles.

Even with actual pedo's though endless pages of 'I hope the sick fuck gets raped to death in jail' ruin a thread. Nick Bate's thread is largely unreadable because of it. Being able to hide all posts with less than say 5 informative ratings or 10 winners would be a godsend.

 

[Clown Doll]

it isn't actually unreasonable to wish grave harm on people like Nick Bate. It's still subject to being repetitive and boring..

Highlighted the part of the post that's a key in the issue. While things like the Chris prison rape jokes are frowned upon now, they were allowed until the magic saturation point was achieved and the funny from the joke petered out. With Nick Bate, random prison rape jokes crop up every now and then, but they don't comprise the majority of the posts now unlike when Nick Bate was immediately arrested. As members of Senior Staff have said in the past, releasing community catharsis is sometimes important, people letting loose the A-Logging juice with Nick Bate was one such case. However, allowing relentless dogpiling and a-logging to happen whenever as long as one particular brand of Lolcow is present, it leads to :
#1 Threads ballooning into unreadable messes where informative posts are hidden among dozens of pages of
#2 Hysterical cry-typey responses that are more reminiscent of Tumblr than a community of calm and collected individuals

Again, I'll retread this point from my previous post :
That doesn't mean that people shouldn't mock them or let them know that they're a bad person in no uncertain terms, just control the output so you don't appear hysterically angry.

 

[Null]

Sometimes, as wagglyplacebo mentioned with the Brad Watson thread, I feel like having the cows come here is just a bad idea (see also: Strikerwolf). We have too many retards here who don't know how to act or play along with someone who thinks they're Jesus or a KKK Grand Dragon or whatever Striker is.

I've thought about this a lot, actually. Banning lolcows is a buzzkill, but there cannot simultaneously be a discussion about them and with them. I'm stumped at what I can do about it.

 

[John Daker]

I've thought about this a lot, actually. Banning lolcows is a buzzkill, but there cannot simultaneously be a discussion about them and with them. I'm stumped at what I can do about it.

There's the Marjan route of creating a secondary thread and restricting the lolcow to one, or the Shaner route of threadbanning the cow and regulating them to a group.

 

[Null]

There's the Marjan route of creating a secondary thread and restricting the lolcow to one, or the Shaner route of threadbanning the cow and regulating them to a group.

Yes. Back when we had Jace on the forum, we actually created a private subforum (Grilled Cheese) specifically for non-public Jace threads. Jan obviously chose to stop posting altogether, though. I think he deemed the interaction there sloppy and uninteresting, or to stressful. I had told DeagleDad that I was worried about Jace's presence on the board because it was ruining actual talks and from that he must've decided it wasn't worth doing anymore.

A similar kind of question rises up with every person of interest who comes up to the forum. We get very interesting people like AFemininePad or Kengle who join and have pretty mild conversation (in Pad's case we did close his thread, even), so it's a situation that varies based on each case.

An idea is that we can have Grilled Cheese 2 and make a private forum that's a "War Room" for dealing with lolcows on the board.
Inversely, we can have a "Takedown / Complaints" board that lolcows are forced to talk in if they want to participate.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Honestly, I can't figure out which of the threads I've posted on is my personal favorite. Between Dobson's lesbian antics, Strikerwolf's general stupidity and our raging Barneyfag and his death wishes, it makes it hard to chose.

And I think the idea of a "Takedown/Complaints" forum seems like a good idea. but it feels like it's kinda missing the point of the lolcow boards to a degree (the fact that they can reply in the threads about them). Though it would help to clean up some of the crap that's on there.

 

[XH 502]

An idea is that we can have Grilled Cheese 2 and make a private forum that's a "War Room" for dealing with lolcows on the board.
Inversely, we can have a "Takedown / Complaints" board that lolcows are forced to talk in if they want to participate.

I think these are excellent ideas, and will help cut down on page count of some of the massive threads. It could also potentially make some of the more unreadable threads (see: the entire Tumblr subforum) actually enjoyable by limiting it to news and developments instead of people just shitting themselves in an attempt to get cow-senpai to notice them.

And I think the idea of a "Takedown/Complaints" forum seems like a good idea. but it feels like it's kinda missing the point of the lolcow boards to a degree (the fact that they can reply in the threads about them). Though it would help to clean up some of the crap that's on there.

We need a complaints forum if only to keep POIs from straying "outside the pen", so to speak. Fuckbot is the biggest example of this as he'll often wander into unrelated threads to complain about how he's being treated on the Farms.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

We need a complaints forum if only to keep POIs from straying "outside the pen", so to speak. Fuckbot is the biggest example of this as he'll often wander into unrelated threads to complain about how he's being treated on the Farms.

I wasn't saying that it wasn't a bad idea. Considering Fuckbot's tendencies and all. Just that it'd feel off if all the lolcows that are a part of the site were confined to just posting in one sub-forum.

 

[XH 502]

I wasn't saying that it wasn't a bad idea. Considering Fuckbot's tendencies and all. Just that it'd feel off if all the lolcows that are a part of the site were confined to just posting in one sub-forum.

Well the War Room idea would still allow for members to actively engage the cows without spamming the main thread with a bunch of ween-y bullshit.

Take Connor's thread, for example. Smutley uncovered a lot of interesting posts Connor's made across the internet, but they've been buried under hundreds of pages of people trying to get Connor to write more. Having a place where the cow's background information and news updates are readily available that's separate from any one-on-one interactions with them would make threads more easily accessible, in my opinion.

 

[Null]

The issue with a War Room is that it moves real discussion off the public threads which is what we want to have forward facing to guests who might be interested in joining.
Complaints might work but I don't like how that's phrased.